Sexuality
| State legislators are still considering a bill that combats Biblical teaching on homosexuality

by Jamie Dean Posted 5/25/18, 03:07 pm

For California residents dealing with unwanted, same-sex attraction, certain members of the state Legislature have a clear message: What you want for your life isn’t as important as what we think you should want. In fact, what you want isn’t really valid.

How else can one read California Assembly Bill 2943? The bill passed the California State Assembly in April and awaits a hearing in the state’s Senate Judiciary Committee.

Homosexuality
| Reclaiming a high view of male and female sexuality

by Marvin Olasky Posted 5/23/18, 04:04 am

Nancy Pearcey’s new book, Love Thy Body: Answering Hard Questions about Life and Sexuality, helps us understand how to respond when a Wisconsin resident born male becomes a high-school prom queen and a Missouri resident born female sues a school district. Pearcey is a professor at Houston Baptist University and the author of Total Truth and other books.

Family
| An Ohio proposal would protect parents who refuse sex changes for their children

by Kiley Crossland Posted 5/18/18, 02:29 pm

State legislators in Ohio this week introduced a bill that would protect parents who do not want their children to undergo treatment for gender dysphoria.

The bill, sponsored by Republican state Reps. Tom Brinkman and Paul Zeltwanger, affirms the fundamental right of parents to “withhold consent for gender dysphoria treatment or activities that are designed and intended to form a child’s conception of sex and gender.”

Bonnie Pritchett | 5/08/18, 02:22 pm

The California state legislature’s latest effort to outlaw Biblical views on sex, marriage, and gender identity appears to have claimed its first casualty. Citing concerns over possible legal repercussions from a pending bill, Colorado-based Summit Ministries has canceled a summer conference at Biola University in the Los Angeles area.

“The vagueness of the bill has opened up threats to religious communities that the author did not intend,” Biola communications director Brenda Velasco told me.

News
| Alfie, Brokaw, California, Patterson, Wolf

Marvin Olasky | 5/07/18, 02:06 pm

An alphabet soup of provocative news filled the last two weeks:

A is for Alfie Evans, who died at April’s end, 11 days short of his second birthday. Maybe he would have died then anyway had Britain’s High Court of Justice allowed his parents to move Alfie to the hospital in Rome that was eager to accept him, but we’ll never know. Thirty British police officers guarded Alfie to keep his supporters from rescuing him. How odd for a hospital to treat a toddler like a roach: He can check in but he can’t check out.

First Amendment
| Faced with accusations of anti-gay bias, state lawmakers are waffling on protections for faith-based foster and adoption agencies

Bonnie Pritchett | 5/01/18, 02:23 pm

Three state legislatures face looming deadlines for bills that would provide legal protection for religious foster and adoption care agencies in their respective states. But the bills have weathered virulent opposition from LGBT lobby groups, and supporters fear lawmakers will buckle under accusations of “discrimination,” leaving agencies exposed to legal challenges that could put them out of business.

Sexuality
| A new ad campaign uses emotional appeals to rally support for so-called nondiscrimination laws

Kiley Crossland | 4/20/18, 03:11 pm

A Denver-based foundation this week released an ad campaign aimed at winning converts to the LGBT cause. But critics argue the campaign ignores the more complex questions surrounding what the government labels a protected class and when it should intervene.

The Gill Foundation, run by wealthy LGBT activist Tim Gill, unveiled the “Beyond I Do” campaign—which includes video, print, and radio ads—on Wednesday. The campaign is projected to get at least $15 million in donated media support, including TV and radio time and billboard space.

Family
| A pediatrician pushes back on allowing gender-confused children to change their names

Kiley Crossland | 4/13/18, 01:40 pm

Mainstream social scientists are on a mission to prove that transgenderism is innate and gender identity affirmation is the only hope of health for transgender individuals.

A new study out of the University of Texas claims to have proven that when transgender youth are allowed to use a chosen name, their risks of depression and suicide drop. But the study only looks at short-term benefits, not long-term consequences.

Parenting
| If ‘Heather has two mommies,’ she’s probably missing her daddy

Andrée Seu Peterson | 4/12/18, 03:24 pm

I was told that strong reporting goes to the source: Be a pavement-pounder, not a thumb-sucker.

But when I learned that a local faith-based agency was recently denied by the city their right to place children in foster homes because they weren’t recruiting same-sex households, I found myself in a quandary. No one I contacted at the Christian group consented to be interviewed. The words of the prophet had come to pass: “Therefore he who is prudent will keep silent in such a time, for it is an evil time” (Amos 5:13).